Koena Mitra on Nora Fatehi’s O Saki Saki: ‘It was too early to kill the original with an average recreation’

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These are the times when old superhit numbers are being ‘recreated’ almost every single day. The latest is Saki Saki, from Musafir (2004), which became a chartbuster following its release 15 years ago and also made Koena Mitra an overnight star.

The new version, sung by Neha Kakkar and Tulsi Kumar, has been performed by Nora Fatehi in the upcoming Batla House. But it has left Koena unimpressed who took to Twitter to say the new version “is a mess”.

“Saki was a cult. I remember we had travelled to Dubai to promote Musafir, and I was thrilled to get that kind of response. People called it a winning horse. It was not just my work. Sanjay Dutt’s presence in it… director Sanjay Gupta shot it well, Bosco-Caesar choreographed it well. A lot of blood and sweat went in to shoot it. Vishal-Shekhar wonderfully composed the song with Sunidhi and Sukhwinder singing it,” she says.

After watching the full song that was released online yesterday, Koena adds: “Nora has got good skills, she’s a lovely dancer. What I didn’t understand is what they (makers) have done to our song. I honestly didn’t like the soundtrack, not even the visuals. They could have shot it in a better way, the way Sanjay had shot the video. It’s still fresh in our memory, it’s not yet an old song. It was too early to kill this song with an average song (recreation). I know my statement is going to be criticised by their team. I am not trying to attack them just because it’s my first film and hit. I feel that nowadays people should just stick to originals, and stop recreating cults. A lot of good songs are dying because of this… They should have approached Vishal-Shekhar and the original singers only.”

We reached out to Bhushan Kumar, the co-producer of Batla House and owner of the music label which has recreated the song, for his response. “The song came years back and Koena performed brilliantly in it. But it’s the era of recreations… Vishal-Shekhar are still involved, we credited them as composers, and the lyricist too has been credited. Everybody has their point of view, and everything has been done according to the law,” he says.